


Fight Like a Fairy

by WriteDreamLie



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, F/M, Gen, Mental Illness, Musical Inspiration: Fight Like a Girl by Emilie Autumn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-20 05:11:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5992752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteDreamLie/pseuds/WriteDreamLie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marianne suffers a head injury while fighting a group of rogue goblins, and is ordered to rest while she heals. But when she sleeps, her mind goes to a pretty scary place...</p><p>Marianne has been committed to a mental institution. They've told her that she's only dreaming about being a fairy princess. Sometimes she agrees that it sounds crazy, and sometimes she knows for sure that they're lying to her...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Does She Know Where She Is?

**Author's Note:**

> Archive Warnings may adjust once I have more of the story written out. 
> 
> Today's title is taken from the song "I Don't Understand" by Emilie Autumn.
> 
> Please listen to Fight Like a Girl by Emilie Autumn. You don't need to know the songs to understand the story, but it's a good album.

Marianne woke up.

The room was spinning. Her head was splitting in two. Both were making her stomach churn.

She groaned. Or she may have screamed. It hurt all the same.

“Marianne?”

Bog’s voice broke through the pain like a rock through a window, even though she could tell he was trying to whisper.

“Hurts…” she managed to reply.

“I know, luv,” he whispered back. Marianne tried not to wince at the sound.

She felt her upper body being lifted, her wings being softly brushed down, something being stuffed behind her back. She was lowered again, now in a more upright position. Her stomach was glad for the gravity switch. Her head, however, rebelled.

“Please, put me back, I can’t…” She knew she was whining, begging even, but damn her pride, she was in _so much pain._

“Here, luv, drink this.”

She forced her eyes open so she could see what he was talking about, but the dark greens and browns of the room became a nauseating blur once more, and for the sake of her stomach she closed them again.

“It’s alrigh’, just relax.”

Something cool was pushed gently to her lips. Marianne opened her mouth just a bit and felt the liquid flow over her tongue.

It was the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted, like honey and sugar and sunshine… and poppies.

Her stomach calmed, and her head stopped trying to crack open.

Marianne meant to say, “Thank you.”

Instead, she fell asleep.

-

Marianne woke up.

The room was dark, but a little light was coming in through the tiny square window on the door to her right. She was glad; she hated when the hall light was off.

Everything was worse in the dark.

She looked up at the bunk above hers and heard soft snoring. Two more sets of breaths could be heard from the other side of the room.

Marianne also hated being the only one awake. And she knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep right away.

So she kicked off the thin white blanket and dropped her feet to the floor.

The linoleum was cold under her bare feet. Someone had removed her sneakers while she was sleeping. She also hated that. Why couldn’t she sleep with shoes on? Not like they were dangerous while she was sleeping…

_Wait. What?_

She looked down at her feet. They were definitely her feet. But what the devil were sneakers? Where were her boots?

She blinked in the semi-darkness.

“Where am I?” she asked, to no one in particular. Her voice sounded muted, as if it were being immediately sucked away by the air around her.

She stood up, barely missing hitting her head on the bunk above. _What is this place?_

It was a small room; Marianne would have been able to cross it from wall to wall in maybe ten strides. The floor was gray speckled linoleum, and the walls were a similarly dull gray over large bricks.

The door was painted a slightly darker gray. Through the square window, placed just about at Marianne’s eye level, she could see a bright white hallway.

The dimness of the room made Marianne’s stomach twist uneasily. Glancing back to the bunk beds, she was relieved to finally find some color.

Along the bedpost that held the bunks together there were two names written in cursive. She recognized the handwriting on the one marking the lower bunk: in her own sloppy, looping script was her name, “Marianne.”

Around the name were several doodles of small blue flowers and bright red hearts. Above that, marking the upper bunk, the name “Rose” was written in much cleaner cursive. A picture of a single bloom was drawn below the name.

She had to assume Rose was the girl snoring gently in the top bunk. Curiosity compelled her to walk silently to the other set of bunks. This one, too, had a pair of names on the post: “Heather” surrounded by a thin vine of leaves, and “Violet” accompanied by a round, purple flower.

She didn’t recognize those names either. Marianne walked to the door, less careful of the slapping noises her bare feet made on the floor now. She peeped out the little window, but could only see more white wall, and another gray door a few feet away on the opposite side.

She tried the door. Locked, of course. It wasn’t time for the doors to be unlocked yet.

_What the hell does that mean?_ The thought had come to her automatically, like she ought to have known what it meant, but the moment she questioned it she lost the reason.

Marianne leaned on the wall by the door and ran her fingers through her hair. _What the hell is wrong with me?_ She tugged at her hair, hoping the slight pain would bring her back to her senses, and felt her wrists run along the tops of her ears.

Her small, round ears. She released her hair in favor of grabbing at her ears, which seemed to have shrunk. She fluttered off the wall, suddenly scared for a whole new reason…

Or she meant to flutter. Leaning off the wall, she became aware that something else had started feeling off as well.

Her wings were gone.

Her hands released her ears and flew to her mouth instead. She wanted to scream, but knew for some reason that doing so would be a _very bad idea._

But she didn’t know how she knew. She didn’t know why she couldn’t scream in this tiny, gray room where her ears were wrong and her sneakers were under the bed and her wings were gone and her name was written in her own handwriting and her wings were gone and _her wings were gone—_

“Miss Marianne?”

A squeak escaped the hand-barricade over Marianne’s mouth. She realized she’d doubled over and was now in a crouching position, her eyes glued to the floor.

She looked up.

The girl was looking down at Marianne with pale blue eyes that looked gray in the light of the door. Marianne decided she hated gray. But, really, she’d decided that a long time ago.

_No, wait, when was that?_

She squeezed her eyes shut and curled more tightly into herself.

“Miss Marianne, you have to get up now,” the girl said in a whisper. Trying not to wake the other girls?

When Marianne opened her eyes again, she saw that the girl needn’t have bothered. The other two girls were already up, one shuffling to either side of the first.

They all had the same face. The same nearly colorless eyes, the same slightly pointed noses, the same long, straight brown hair. 

The only difference, she could just barely see, were the ribbons holding their ponytails in place: one red, one green, one blue.

“Rose,” she addressed the first girl without thinking. “What’s going on?”

Rose smiled. “Seems like you were having a bad dream, miss.”

Marianne finally dropped her hands from her face. She nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess I was.”

The triplet with the green ribbon, Heather, stepped forward and offered Marianne her hand. Marianne took it, gratefully, and pulled herself to her feet. On the way up, she noticed her balance was still off.

_Wings._

She dropped Heather’s hand and grabbed the girl violently by her shoulders. “Where are my wings?” she demanded.

All three girls went wide-eyed. Heather’s hands rose to cover Marianne’s mouth, and Violet stepped behind Marianne, her hands settling softly on Marianne’s back where her wings ought to have been.

Rose didn’t move, but her eyes darted quickly to the door.

“It’s okay, Miss Marianne,” whispered Violet, rubbing small circles into Marianne’s back.

“We just have to calm down now, make sure we stay quite a while longer,” added Heather.

Rose nodded. “It’s not time for the door to be open yet.”

Marianne was suddenly glad for Heather and Violet’s physical contact as her legs nearly gave out on her and she had to rely on them to hold her up.

“Was it the fairy dream again, miss?” asked Heather, leaning her head down to catch Marianne’s eyes.

Marianne nodded. Dream. Of course it was a dream. People didn’t have wings. And being stuck in a mental asylum meant she certainly wasn’t a fairy princess.

She let Heather and Violet lead her back to her bed. For as hard as it was to keep standing, it seemed even harder to lay herself back down.

“Would you like me to stay down here with you, miss?” asked Rose.

Marianne, stiff as a board on the equally stiff mattress, watched Heather and Violet crawl back into their beds. They seemed very far away now.

She nodded.

Rose reached up to the top bunk and pulled her blanket down. Then, arranging Marianne’s blanket as well, she lay down next to Marianne and pulled the meager covers over both of them.

Once Rose was settled, Marianne curled up close and nestled her head under the other girl’s chin.

Rose put an arm over Marianne’s shoulder, rubbing small circles on her back just like Violet had.

It took a while for Marianne’s breathing to level out. _It's nearly time for the door to unlock._

Marianne, slowly but finally, fell asleep.

-

Marianne fought to wake up. She clawed at the weight holding her down, her fingers pushing violently through a thick layer of sticky webs…

She finally got her eyes open and pushed herself away from the body holding itself to her. Her movements were sluggish, her arms hardly strong enough to free herself.

“Mari… what’re ya doin’…”

Marianne blinked a few times to make sure she was seeing things properly.

She wasn’t in an asylum bed in a bland gray room; she was in Bog’s bed, green and mossy and surrounded by the more varied colors of the forest. And it wasn’t a blank-faced Rose she’d pushed away…

It was a half-asleep Bog, who was still looking at her, now with increased concern.

“Marianne…?”

“Sorry,” she said, her hands making their way slowly up to her face. She rubbed the last of the fog from her eyes. “Sorry, I just had a really weird dream.”

“Aye, the healer said the mixture had that effect...” he yawned, wings twitching a bit, “…sometimes.”

“Huh. Could have warned me.” Marianne reached over, her arms still moving as if through thick webs, and took one of Bog’s hands.

“Aye, well, if ye’d been the least bit coherent maybe.” Bog squeezed her hand softly. “If the pain comes back, which the healer said is likely, there’s more o’ the stuff next to the bed there.”

He closed his eyes again and, still holding her hand, slipped back into sleep.

Marianne rolled over slowly to look: there was, indeed, a glass bottle full of liquid that looked a bit like honey with bits of pink and purple petals floating throughout. Her head throbbed then, as if in encouragement.

She ignored it, and instead rolled onto her back, feeling her wings move beneath her. When the throbbing continued, she squeezed Bog’s hand and stared intently at the ceiling of the room.

She was still staring intently, ignoring the pain, when the sun came up the next morning.


	2. If I Have To, I Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's discoveries include seizures, pills, and scrambled eggs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to the lovely RazorusPrime for beta-reading! May all your eggs be perfectly cooked!
> 
> Today's musical inspiration comes from the song "Fight Like a Girl" by Emilie Autumn.

“Tha's my Tough Girl,” sighed Bog, wrapping his arm more tightly around Marianne's shoulders.

Marianne smiled. Bog didn't.

“Well, this 'Tough Girl' act will need to stop for time being,” said the healer, a goblin about half Marianne's height. Though he was hunched over, so it was hard to tell exactly how tall he _could_ have been...

“Ya see? This is wha' I mean...” Bog gestured toward Marianne with his free hand.

“What?” She tried to turn her head, which was resting on his shoulder, to look up at him. A sting of pain that radiated down into her back stopped her short.

“Ya didn' even defend yerself! He just called you an act!” The Bog King gestured towards the healer with one hand. “I'd do the defendin' if this one weren' here to help.”

“My apologies,” said the healer, raising his hands in surrender. “I only meant that she will have to stop fighting the rest. She _has to sleep._ ”

“She doesn't _have_ do to do anything,” Marianne shot back. She still couldn't turn her head, but her eyes found the healer's with a look that she hoped hurt.

“Now, young lad—Ah—Your Royal Highness, you were hit pretty directly on the back of the head. There's a fracture in your skull. If you don't rest, and that includes sleeping quite a bit, you may well end up with some major brain damage.”

_Brain damage? The rock wasn't that big..._

“Hey, what happened to those goblins anyway?”

Bog shifted slightly to look down at Marianne. _He’s frowning, I can feel it._

Marianne didn't even try to look back up at him. “What? I got knocked out. I couldn't remember the end of that debacle if I tried.”

“Well, ye knocked out four of 'em yerself before the one in the tree dropped the boulder on ye.” Bog's grip on her shoulder tightened slightly. “Not sure that one's woken up yet.”

The healer didn't comment on this, though he looked like he was about to. Instead, he turned his focus back to Marianne.

“I must insist that you take more of the poppy mixture and sleep for at least another day. A _whole day,_ ” he added, expecting Marianne's response.

Marianne groaned, then immediately regretted it as her head started throbbing again. If her arms didn't feel so heavy, she might have reached up and tried to feel the fracture herself; having never had an injury like this before, she was a little bit curious.

Unfortunately, the rest of the room was more concerned than curious.

“Is there any way to get the dreams to stop at least?” she asked.

“I'm afraid not,” said the doctor with a shake of his head. His long nose swung with the motion. “The mixture is designed to put you into a deep, restorative sleep. There's no way to control what your subconscious does with that time.”

Another sting of pain ran down Marianne's back and she cringed involuntarily.

“They're jus' dreams, luv,” Bog said, apparently under the impression that that was the source of the cringe.

“I know, I just...” Marianne trailed off and closed her eyes.

She could feel it again, the lack of balance. How _wrong_ everything felt without her wings.

But that hadn't been the worst part of the dream... the worst part was how easily she'd accepted that her wings hadn't been real to begin with. _I was so sure it was real._

She supposed things like that happened in dreams; after all, you rarely knew you were dreaming while _in_ the dream.

But it was enough; she dreaded going back to sleep.

Marianne forced her eyes open again. The edges of everything blurred, but kept their shape this time. And one thing stayed startlingly clear.

Bog's eyes, the color of a clear Spring sky that made her think of flying and falling and being in love... Only right now they were looking right at her with such concern that it made her heart hurt.

Her head, clearly taking this as a challenge, throbbed one final time. The pain radiated throughout Marianne's body, and she shuddered, accidentally slipping out of Bog's grip and backwards onto the bed.

Soft as the mossy surface was, the impact still hurt. The shuddering continued, Marianne's muscles refusing to cooperate with her anymore.

Marianne could feel her lungs struggling for air, not because they were blocked at all, but simply because she was panicking. From somewhere else, her mind knew this. Some subconscious part of her was aware that she was panicking.

_Calm down,_ she tried to plead with her twitching muscles. _Please._

That conscious part of her brain heard the conversation going on around her. Instructions were being barked back and forth to turn her over, lay her down gently, prop her up a bit, just get the bottle to her mouth...

She swung her arm out—gaining some small amount of control—and felt her hand connect with glass. She immediately regretted it, suddenly aware of how silly she was being.

Marianne focused on breathing normally and staying still. Finally, her muscles gave in, and she settled into a painful, but calm position.

She struggled to stay still even as she felt Bog, now kneeling at the side of the bed, take one of her hands in his own. Her neck refused to cooperate as she tried to turn her head to face him, so she had to settle for simply meeting his eyes with her own.

Somehow the concern had doubled. _Have his eyes gotten brighter?_

“Marianne…”

Oh, no, the hurt in his voice was _much_ worse.

“Marianne,” he said again, speaking just barely over a whisper, “ya have to get better, luv. Ya have to…”

He didn’t say it, but Marianne knew what he meant. _You have to get better… for me._

There was hardly a better reason. Barring Dawn saying the same thing, Marianne wasn’t sure she’d have let such a statement, unsaid or otherwise, go without a retort.

She wouldn’t do it for herself, stubborn as she was to be as strong as possible. But she’d do it for Bog in a heartbeat.

Her neck was still too stiff to move, and even the hand currently held in Bog’s wouldn’t move to hold his back.

So again, she settled for meeting his eyes straight on and mumbling a single, “Mhm,” which she hoped sounded like the assent she’d meant it to be.

In her periphery, Marianne saw the healer shuffle forward again. Before he could lift the bottle to her mouth, Bog reached forward and took it from him with his free hand.

The healer didn’t object, and in fact nodded and shuffled away, out of Marianne’s sight and presumably out of the room.

“I want ya to know,” Bog said, squeezing Marianne’s hand, “tha’ whatever goes on in that stubborn little head of yers, I’m here. I’ll be here waitin’ for ya to heal up.”

Marianne wished she could squeeze his hand back. Instead, she had to settle for another, softer, “Mhm.”

He smiled, and she took that as understanding.

Without another word, Bog lifted the bottle to Marianne’s lips and she forced her jaw open to let the flowery mixture through.

Almost immediately, she felt her muscles relax. The pain in her head slipped away like water.

And she tried, _she tried so hard_ to fight the sleep for one more second, just to tell Bog she loved him…

But her tongue was too slow, and she was out cold a second later.

* * *

 

Marianne woke up.

She was getting more than tired of this. Or rather, she was just tired.

It had been a rough night. _Did I have another panic attack?_ She tried to remember, but all she could bring to mind was getting back out of bed.

Marianne rubbed her eyes and rolled over on the lumpy mattress. There was another blanket over her usual one.

_Rose._ She remembered the other girl getting into bed with her. _Must’ve been a panic attack then._

But Rose wasn’t in the bed now. Rolling the rest of the way over, Marianne saw that all three triplets were already awake and dressed in their uniforms: white T-shirts over dark grey gym shorts. Each had their ribbons tied neatly in their hair once more.

Marianne kicked the blankets away and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her sneakers were off again. Damn it, who kept taking them away from her?

_Hold on._

There it was again: the feeling of being… wrong. She was out of place again, even though she was right where she was supposed to be.

She stared at the shoes, the toes of which were sticking out from under the bed. They stared back, both a faded, dirty white with several black and green smudges, probably from running in the yard.

_What the hell?_

Marianne stood up suddenly, and her back struck the bunk above her, sending her to the ground face first.

“Miss Marianne?” asked Violet hesitantly.

_How do I know that’s Violet?_ _Something in the voice?_

Marianne looked up at the triplets, all staring at her in concern while shifting from one foot to the other as if unsure whether they should move forward to help.

She decided for them.

“I’m fine,” she snapped. She moved herself over onto her back, then up into a sitting position facing her bed.

Marianne snatched the shoes from the floor as if they’d done her a personal wrong. Like it was their fault that her back hurt now, ached acutely where her wings were supposed to be…

_Not now,_ she shushed herself. She was not going to let this stupid dream get to her again. Ignoring the unbalanced feeling, Marianne stood and turned to the tall metal dresser the girls shared.

She knew the top drawer was hers, even though they weren’t labeled like the beds. On the left side of the drawer were several pairs of grey gym shorts and sweat pants, as well as one pair of plain black pants and a single black skirt. On the right side was a stack of plain white t-shirts and one white button-down shirt.

She glanced at the other girls. All three were in t-shirts and gym shorts, so she pulled a matching set of clothes out and shoved the drawer shut.

Marianne changed quickly, tossing her nightgown into the little chute behind the dresser. It wasn’t until she’d picked the shoes back up to put them on that Marianne lost her balance again and had to sit back on the bed.

Rose appeared in front of her, a pair of white socks in hand.

“Need any help?” she asked.

Marianne snatched the socks out of Rose’s hand and immediately felt bad; Rose, however, didn’t look the least bit bothered, and stood there looking at Marianne calmly, apparently waiting for an answer.

“No,” she said, a little softer. “I’m fine.”

Rose nodded and went back to stand with her sisters at the door.

_Almost time,_ thought Marianne. Then she glared at the shoes, angry all over again as she shoved them onto her feet over the socks.

There was an audible _click_ that seemed to echo off the stupid grey walls.

Marianne stood, dodging the top bunk this time, and stomped to the door. The triplets parted to let her through, and she ripped the door open with all her might.

She was mightily disappointed when the knob hit a rubber stopper on the wall, which took the emphasis away from the motion.

_I’ll just have to make up for it then._ Marianne stomped through the doorway and down the hall, making sure to be as loud as possible with every step she took. The triplets, though much quieter, followed close behind.

Marianne noted that their room was at the end of the hall, nearest the door marked “Ward 8.”

_Home,_ she thought with a small smile.

_Screw you,_ she thought when she caught herself. She slapped her sneakers roughly on the linoleum.

The other doors on either side of the hallway were opening slowly. An eye or two peaked out as she passed.

One door swung wide, and a heavy-set girl with dark skin and bright eyes poked her head out just in time to watch Marianne stomp by. The girl raised an eyebrow at all the noise being made, but said nothing.

The last door on the left remained shut, and Marianne had the urge to knock on it. Was that something she normally did?

_Not today._

She stomped instead through the set of double doors at the other end of the hall.

The stomping went on past the set of long, metal tables, all three of which were empty, and right up to the counter stacked with thin, metal trays. Marianne snatched one up and nearly knocked the lot onto the floor.

“Rough night?”

The gangly young man behind the glass partition smiled crookedly at Marianne with a mouth full of metal. The fluorescent overhead lights made the mess of wires and small metal plates look like a sliver of a disco ball.

_Whatever that is._

Less than eloquently, Marianne asked, “What's wrong with your mouth?”

Metal-mouth, apparently used to this kind of treatment, smiled even wider at her question.

“Oh boy, where do I start?”

The fixture gave him a lisp, and his jaw moved side to side as he spoke as if he had to consciously find room for his tongue.

“I keep telling you I'll fix it for you,” came a voice from the other end of the room.

Marianne turned in time to see the double doors swing shut behind the triplets and the heavy-set girl. _When did they stop following me?_

“And I keep telling _you_ that knocking my teeth _out_ is not the answer, _Stella-Luna._ ”

The girl scowled and snatched up her own tray. “You'll never know if you never try, _Thaddeus_.”

The two matched scowls and stuck their tongues out— _How did he even get his tongue past all that metal?—_ then relaxed into comfortable smiles.

“Better move along,” said Stella, elbowing Marianne softly. “The crowd'll be coming in.”

Marianne lifted her tray to the little shelf on top of the glass partition, only wondering after the fact why she'd done it. Thaddeus was already busy preparing plates of food, setting them up in a line behind the counter and doling equal portions onto each.

“What has chef made us today?” asked Stella in a faux British accent.

Thaddeus replied in a mockery of a French accent: “Oh, ze usual miss, just le unsalted eggs, le unbuttered toast, and ze most lukewarm milk one could ever hope for!”

“I would expect it no other way!” Stella rolled her eyes; they were an oddly dark hazel with a yellow-ish tint. “You should absolutely pass our compliments on to the chef. He'll appreciate it.”

_He'll appreciate it._

“Stuff!” Marianne clapped her hands together. _Of course I’d dream people I know!_ “You’re Stuff!”

“Marianne, that joke’s only funny if you tell the first part first,” Stella-Stuff said, reaching up to take her now full tray off the rack.

Marianne automatically reached up for her own tray and managed to catch Thaddeus’s eyes. _I gave the poor goblin braces._

With a laugh, she said, “Sorry, Thang! I guess whatever’s wrong with your teeth is my fault!”

He raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing as Marianne took her tray and followed Stuff to one of the long, metal tables.

The wall opposite the entrance was equipped with a single wide window, and in the natural light Marianne could see further clues that she was right. Stella’s hair, though blonde, had an odd greenish tint to the darker roots. Her eyes shined even brighter in the morning sunlight, looking almost catlike in their luminosity.

_Catlike?_ That was the word, definitely. _But what does that mean?_

“So,” Stuff started, holding up her fork. “This is a fork. You use it to eat. You scoop up your food, like so,” she mimed scooping food out of the air, “and put it in your mouth.” She stuck in the tongs between her teeth and mimicked chewing on them.

Marianne, only slightly offended, replied, “I _know_ how to use a fork.”

Stuff shrugged and plucked the fork back out of her mouth. “Who knows sometimes? You forget the weirdest things when you’re on a Fairy Kick.”

The triplets settled down with their trays on the opposite side of the table and glanced from Stuff to Marianne with knitted brows. Violet began biting her lip.

Marianne scoffed. “Fairy Kick, huh?” _Like that’s the dream, and this nonsense is the reality._

She looked away from Stuff to examine her tray. It held a tall plastic glass of milk, a smaller plastic cup holding several blue and white pellets, and a plate full of toasted bread and…

“What’s this?” she asked, poking the squishy yellow mush with her fork.

“See, that’s what I mean,” replied Stuff, her mouth full of the yellow stuff already. “It’s scrambled eggs.”

Marianne scooped a bit of the egg onto her fork. “What kind of fish does this come from?”

Stuff snorted, then began coughing. The triplets were a little nicer about their amusement, the three of them raising their hands to cover small smiles.

“It's from a chicken,” offered Heather. When Marianne stared at her, still not understanding, she added, “It's a bird, Miss Marianne.”

Marianne looked back down at her plate, eyes wide with horror.

“This is a _bird egg?_ Can you even do that?” She let the bit of egg she'd picked up slide back off the fork.

“Yep,” said Stuff, having cleared her lungs of egg. She took a large bite of toast followed by a long swig of milk. Then she looked back at Marianne, who had stopped moving entirely for several seconds. “You’d better eat. We’re going out in the yard today, and they won’t let you take that out with you.”

Marianne rolled her eyes. “Obviously.”

She scooped a bit of the egg back up and, after another few seconds of staring at it like it would fly itself off the fork, popped it into her mouth.

It was soft and fluffy and salty and _perfect._ She got through half the plate— _Eggs are the best!_ —and most of the milk before Stella stopped her with a hand over the glass.

“You gonna save some of that for the pills?”

Marianne looked back down at her tray. The blue and white pellets. The day’s set of pills.

_Of course._ She picked up the cup.

_No way._ She stared at the pills, her chest constricting with… fear?

_They’re just medicine!_

_What will they do to me?_

Marianne looked up and met Rose’s eyes. The triplet didn’t offer any indication of what Marianne should do. That was confirmation enough.

“I’ll pass.” Marianne set the pills back down and finished the milk.

No sooner had the pills been set down than they were gone from her tray once again. Rose plucked the cup back up from the tray and distributed the pills between her and her sisters. The three added the pills to their own multi-colored collections, and downed them all in one go.

Marianne didn’t even have time to question it.

“That’s what I figured,” Stella said, standing up from the table. “You never take those damn pills.”

_And I never will._ Marianne couldn’t imagine having to swallow those pills herself. It had never seemed right that she had to take medicine. She wasn’t sick.

_Not sick. Dreaming._

Marianne took a few bites of toast and finished the eggs. She stood up from her stool and began walking the tray back to the counter.

The double doors swung open to her left and she caught a flash of gold out of the corner of her eye.

“Here I am, ladies!”

_Whoa-oh oh, here I am…_

Marianne froze in place. Her hands suddenly went numb, and the tray slipped out of her grasp. The empty cup and half piece of toast slid across the floor.

A sigh. “C’mon Marianne...”

She refused to look up. She wouldn’t. _Never._

Turned out she didn’t need to; a moment later, a head of gold hair appeared just inches from her downturned face. A horrifying dream version of Roland looked up at her with bright green eyes and a brighter white smile from his kneeling position on the floor.

_On my knees again…_

She wanted to kick him. He was right there. But she couldn’t. Her legs wouldn’t move. _What is he doing here? Why would I dream him?_

“Having a bad morning, buttercup?” He winked, then turned to pick up the things from the tray.

_Screw you._ She wanted to say it out loud. Her tongue won’t move either.

Marianne continued to stare at the floor where the tray had fallen until Roland had cleaned up the mess and returned it all to the counter.

On his way back, Roland touched her shoulder. Finally, her muscles decided to cooperate and she pulled away from him.

He shrugged and turned to the rest of the girls who were now standing by the door waiting.

Marianne glared from where she was until another, firmer hand landed on her shoulder.

Stuff raised an eyebrow and tilted her head toward the door. “Come on, Marianne.”

_C’mon Marianne…_

Marianne ground her teeth together and nodded stiffly. _It’s going to be a long night._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit it: "C'mon Marianne" is my favorite villain song now. 
> 
> It's just so catchy. Damn you, Roland. *shakes fist*
> 
> Tune in next time for the author's first attempt at angst in a looooong time. (Lord, beer me strength.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Critique is welcome!


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